Chapter 3
Gul Madred and Tallara were having lunch at his private quarters when a comm signal from the Reklar, the ship that was currently undergoing negotiations with the Federation flag ship Enterprise, arrived. Gul Lemec ordered them to prepare Captain Picard for returning to the Federation and remove most hints of him being tortured. He didn't state any further explanations and Madred and Tallara stopped their meal immediately to get a last chance to talk to Picard before the Central Command would officially order the base's guards to take him from Madred's control.
"What's your plan?" Tallara asked, trying to keep up with Madred's fast pace.
"Break him. He is a typical Starfleet officer but I need him to be broken. He would make an excellent example in interrogation techniques with Federation officers. We haven't had many chances yet to explore humanity."
"You want him to admit that there are five lights…"
"What do you think about it?"
"The best way so far. Direct approach has not proven successful with Picard. I assume you'll further offer him a place in archaeological expeditions on Cardassia?"
"If not Starfleet, he would have become an archaeologist. It is the best way to distract him from why he is here," Gul Madred explained.
"And offering him insight in the old Hebitians culture might be very interesting – for him."
"You should be very careful about that, Dara… But you are right, of course," the Gul said and eyeballed her from the side.
She nodded. The Hebitian religion was forbidden to be practiced, although she had come to know quite a lot about it, even having participated in one or two secret meetings at the Institute.
"What must I do?" Picard moaned.
Although Tallara had been trained under the hardest conditions at Bamarren, emotions were the few things she had tried to keep. And right now, she felt pity for the Starfleet officer. After all, she was a member of a Federation race and whatever Tain said, he could not deny this. She thought about how it would be to return to Federation space one day but couldn't really imagine it. She was quickly drawn back into reality, when Gul Madred answered, "Nothing, really. Tell me, how many lights you see."
She felt nervous. The guard soldiers were about to come every minute, wanting Picard for his return to the Enterprise. If they came in, the Captain would know that his suffering was over and would not reveal anything anymore – not even how many lights were not to be seen.
Captain Picard's glance moved over Madred's head and towards the brightly lit lamps. Tallara had never seen a human in a worse condition – except for, perhaps, an old enemy of Tain who she had met in one of the Order's interrogation cells. No human was perfect, not even the Captain of the Federation starship. But nevertheless, she admired his strength of the last days, he was definitely a special man and the right person to be the Captain of the main ship. She wished she would have met him under easier circumstances.
"How many lights?" Gul Madred's voice was low, and calm. "This is your last chance. The guards are coming."
It is over, Tallara thought. Picard would not break. Gul Madred had committed so many mistakes, and Picard was just not the right man for treason. He was a loyal officer, probably more loyal than the best Cardassian soldier would ever be. Tallara sighed silently, this game is over, Madred.
"You told me, he would be ready to go," the first guard said angrily.
You've had your chance, Madred. And you failed. At the Order, you would beg for your execution right now.
"There are four lights!" Picard shouted, before he turned around and walked towards the door, pushing the Cardassian guard away.
Tallara had a quick look at Gul Madred. He was not happy and her only hope was that she wouldn't be the one being made responsible. Madred liked to blame others and vent his spleen on someone else.
=/\=
Tallara's mission was over and she would head back to Cardassia Prime within one hour. She had contacted Tain and he had pulled the right strings to get her out of the military base. She was packing her last things into her bag when someone knocked at the door. She first thought it was Damar, probably saying good-bye, but then she remembered that he was on duty right now. She wondered how it could be, and said, 'come in'.
When she turned around, she was surprised to look at a Cardassian who she hadn't before seen on this station. "I'm sorry, can I help you?" she asked.
"Yes, I thought that you probably might," he answered with a smile and the next thing she knew was that she was being hit by a Federation phaser set to stun. "And I'm sorry for the rude way of entering," he apologized while he caught her before she could fall to the ground. He took out a communicator and ordered to beam them up.
When Tallara awoke, she knew that something was wrong. She first didn't get why, but then she felt her skin and noticed that her Cardassian neck ridges were gone, as well as everything that made her look like one of them. She looked around and saw that she was lying on a small operation table, surrounded by nothing than grey walls. There was a mirror on one side and she stumbled towards it, still feeling the aftershock of the phaser shot.
It felt weird seeing her usual blue skin color and white hair again, especially without the antennae.
"It might be a bit unusual right now, but believe me, you will get used to it," someone said behind her and she quickly turned around. It was the same Cardassian who had stunned her.
"Who are you?" she wanted to know and walked towards him. He did not back off.
"I think the first important question is, where are we? I can answer you that one, we are not in the Cardassian sector anymore. You were asleep for about seventeen hours."
"This room is Cardassian architecture," she recognized.
"Yes, yes it is. We are aboard a space station, my dear. It had been built by Cardassians and is now in Federation's hands."
"Who are you?" she repeated.
"You might want to sit down because the following news are going to be a bit unsettling for you," he offered.
She hesitated, but then sat down on the cold Cardassian bed again.
"What I am going to tell you is the truth and I have means to prove it. However, I want you to believe me and I will need your complete trust," the Cardassian said.
"If we're aboard a Federation-run space station, how come you are aboard?"
"Everything within its time," he said and sighed. "Do I have your trust?"
She looked around. The only window showed nothing but the blackness of space. The space station was slowly rotating and the stars were changing. "I assume I have no other way than to trust you," she finally answered and decided to listen to whatever this Cardassian was about to tell.
"My name is Elim Garak, you might have heard about me from my father Enabran Tain who you are working for. You do not need to fear me, I am completely on your side and I know everything about you," the Cardassian began, hesitated, and then continued, "I come from the year 2382, but right now, we are aboard this space station in the year of 2376. It is the end of the Dominion War, a war in which Cardassia was nearly completely destroyed, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation suffered severe losses. In the year 2381 I had decided that I could not live with the outcome of the war, so I had decided to go back in time and alter history. Let me finish, please, before you criticize. I had gone back into the year 2376 and warned my former self. He had taken other steps than me and successfully changed the outcome of the war. Not much, but several people had survived and other people had died instead. Then, to not create a paradox, he had also travelled back in time, when he had become older, to remind himself to change history. Unfortunately, I had set in motion a certain chain of events that I had not foreseen. Due to information about the first 'me' intending time travel, I know how the universe had been before. By travelling back in time, I had entered into an alternate universe."
"The theory of creating an alternate reality of every decision we make," Tallara said. "By travelling back, you accidentally created several new universes and trapped yourself in them. You prevented yourself from doing your initial decisions and the original universe ceased to exist."
"Exactly. And from what I have seen and noticed, my actions have only made things worse."
"You want to alter everything back. But you've created the alternate universes already, there is no way of closing them."
"There is a way. My intention is to bring everything back into the original universe the first 'me' has come from. By doing that, I close any way to jump into the newly created alternate realities. Crossing into parallel universes will still be possible, but just not into those I have created due to my first time travel."
"Okay, I understand so far. But I have two questions," she said slightly confused. "First, what does it have to do with me? Second, what happened in the primary universe, and what made the alternate reality so much worse?"
"For the second question, let me tell you the following: 2376. The end of the Dominion War. In the final battle, Legate Damar, leader of a revolutionary group succeeds to turn the Cardassians, who had been allied with the Dominion, against the Dominion themselves. With their help, Romulans, Klingons and the Federation can successfully defeat the Dominion fleet and their allied Breen."
"Wait, this 'Dominion' had been allied with Cardassia and Breen? And how the hell did Klingons and Romulans work together – with the UFP?"
"This is not important by now. You will learn everything when it's time."
"I've heard this too often."
"Please trust me, Tallara."
She nodded. She didn't know why, but she nodded.
"The Dominion was defeated, their leader race, the Founders, were captured and held trial. In order of Damar's revolution, he died and I killed a leading Dominion diplomat, called Weyoun, for his many crimes against the Cardassians and Legate Damar."
"You mean Corat Damar, don't you?"
"Yes, I do. You know him?"
She nodded again.
"In the following years, the Federation helped to rebuild the Cardassian government and its infrastructure. Thousands of more people died from starvation, plague and civil wars. The Romulans created the Typhon Pact with several other races and new wars were coming. No one was ready."
"Let me get this straight, you want this universe back? Was the alternative so much worse?" she asked in disbelief.
Elim Garak sighed and starred at her with his lovely blue eyes. "What do you know about a genetically engineered human named Khan Noonien Singh?"
"Several things…I assume. I learnt it at –"
"The Bamarren Institute of State Intelligence, I know. In the primary universe, Khan was recovered after being sent into space in the 20th century. He and his crew were awoken by Captain James Tiberius Kirk in the 23rd century."
"I am well aware of the story. He destroyed half San Francisco in his attempt of revenge."
"No, he didn't. The original Khan tried to take over the Enterprise to get back the power he was intended to have. He failed and was exiled to Ceti Alpha V, an isolated planet. Several years later, he searched revenge and tried to kill Captain Kirk, leading to the death, well, and resurrection, of his best friend Spock. Khan died due to the explosion of the Genesis device – which I will tell you about later. But Khan was killed."
"Okay, so I assume that we are already in this alternate reality that you want to prevent. I now know what is supposed to happen, but what has actually happened or will happen?" Tallara asked and a headache started to slowly crawl up into her brain.
"In the alternate reality, in which I had jumped, Khan had been found by a megalomaniac Starfleet officer and then turned against Starfleet itself for unknown reasons. The whole thing is a bit hard to believe…so many logic mistakes…however, Khan did not die but was put into a stasis chamber that finally ended up in the headquarters of the Obsidian Order. Because of me travelling back, and jumping into this alternate reality, he was unfortunately awoken. In 2376, he tried to prevent the defeat of the Dominion and make the Federation's victory a lot bloodier. However, Corat Damar survived. Khan was captured again and put into stasis but was re-awoken…"
"You're giving me more details later, will you?" she asked in disbelief. What was the point of all this?
"Yes, yes I will. Khan was re-awoken and fled from Cardassia. In 2379 he helped the current Romulan praetor to take over sole command over the Romulan government and the Tal Shiar. Praetor Shinzon, a human clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who you might know by now, and alternate-reality-Khan started a war against the Federation and Cardassia. Cardassia had been helpless anyway, and Khan wiped out any member of the Order for the genetic experiments they had conducted on him. The Klingon Empire had still tried to recover from the Dominion War and fell shortly after the Federation. You cannot imagine the tragedy, Tallara."
"So, the Alpha Quadrant came under the rule of the Romulan Star Empire. What happened?"
"The Borg attacked. It is worse than the climax of the Dominion War. The existence of our individuality is at stake and Shinzon and Khan are the most ruthless rulers you could imagine, because they have no one to stop them. And Romulus is backing them completely."
"How could you possibly prevent all this and shut down all connections between the primary and its mirror universes to the alternate realities?"
"How can you un-do the past, present and future?" he asked and his blue eyes seemed to glow in the dimmed light.
"A paradox," she said after a while. "Create a paradox and everything will resolve itself. A risky plan…"
"It could work."
"It could."
"The main point is to travel back in time and make sure that Khan's history is corrected. That will create a paradox to our current universe."
"You can't expect everything to jump back simply because of that."
"If we correct history to what it has once been, nothing will have happened at all."
This is insane. That was the only thing Tallara could right now think. She looked at the dark brown-grey floor and at the walls. She had heard about Garak, but everything she had read now seemed underrated. This man was insane. Or probably it was just what this alternate reality had done to him.
"There is still the first question I asked to be answered. What role do I play in your plans?" she asked.
He hesitated for a long while, before he pulled out a communicator. "You can come in," he said when he had tapped it.
The doors opened and Tallara couldn't really believe what she was seeing. She herself entered the room.
"This is you from 2376. This is you who had helped me to figure out this plan all along," Garak explained.
Tallara stood up from the bed and walked towards herself. She looked older, scars were decorating her face, her hair was longer and she had two antennae which rested calmly on her head.
"Why would you do this?" she asked herself.
"Guilt," the older Tallara Shran answered with a deeper voice. "Guilt of what we have done. The Romulan War against the Borg is our fault and we are going to prevent it."
Please tell me if you were interested in reading a sequel, either as a review or via PM.
I would also appreciate it, if you wrote me in case that you are interested in the prequel of this story, featuring mainly Elim Garak, and later both Tallara Shran and alternate-reality-Khan.
Probably you're just going to skip what I say, but I appreciate every single line of a review you'll give me ;)
(I haven't uploaded Shadows of War - Part I because I knew no one would review :( )
Yours sincerely, sevenofmine